The dormant National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has no funds and necessary infrastructure to prosecute 248 persons on corruption charges if their cases were revived after the lapse of the infamous National Reconciliation Ordinance on November 28, 2009 in light of the Supreme Court judgement of July 31, 2009, sources in NAB told Business Recorder on Sunday.
The government on Saturday released the list of 8,041 beneficiaries of the NRO. According to the list, 97 percent NRO beneficiaries, majority of them bureaucrats and government officials, are from Sindh.
The sources said that Naveed Ahsan, a retired grade 22 bureaucrat, is still the Chairman of NAB, and the apex anti-corruption organisation has its offices in the provincial capitals, yet the government reduced its budget and staff strength in the current budget by two thirds. They said the NAB authorities have been holding in house meetings to meet the situation to arise out of the revival of NAB cases after November 28.
"Danishwar Malik is still working as NAB Prosecutor General but he has no funds to pursue any case in the court", they added. They said it depends on the government whether it want to pursue the cases and catch the thieves or just let the cases lapse in the accountability courts.
"If it wants to prosecute the criminals, then it should revive its usual annual budget", they added. It may be recalled that NAB was tasked with the responsibility of elimination of corruption through awareness, prevention and enforcement. It operated under the National Accountability Ordinance-1999, with its headquarter at Islamabad and four regional offices in the provincial capitals and one at Rawalpindi. It takes cognisance of all offences falling within the National Accountability Ordinance jurisdiction. The constitutional and legal experts say that NRO is a discriminatory law and it could not stand in any court, therefore the beneficiaries would have to face courts.